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Second Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 23, 2006

First reading, Acts 4:32-35

Our Liturgical Setting: Every Easter season, the Lectionary tours Acts of the Apostles. In liturgical year B, the Sunday-by-Sunday selections highlight the internal life of the earliest Christian community, Peter's preaching mostly to Jews, and a hint of the evangelization of Gentiles.

The Historical Situation: Voluntary pooling of resources may seem weird to modern Westerners, as novel as Karl Marx's ideas seemed in the West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this was not so in the Middle East, then or now. What is remarkable here is the locus of the pool: the church community rather than the blood family. Secondly, owners of property were few and elite; their mixing on this level with the mass of common folk was also astonishing. And the authority accorded to the apostles is also worthy of note. So this passage implies that the Christian community is assuming the nature of a family and beginning to overcome distinctions based on wealth. Furthermore, the apostles are beginning to take on authority formerly granted to Judaism's priests. The apostles' "careers," so to speak, also begin to conform to that of Jesus.

Proclaiming It: These are important changes with big implications, but these selectively chosen verses report them in a somewhat offhand way. Don't be fooled. That this sharing was quite a big deal is made perfectly clear by verses that follow shortly, Acts, chapter 5, verses 1-11, a story scandalous to moderns that you won't find in the Sunday Lectionary.

Though our text lacks such juicy details, the lector should try to express the revolutionary nature of the social changes that faith in Jesus brought about. To prepare, meditate on the contrasts, if any, between the community described and the community in which you live and worship. Is your church of one heart and one mind? What possessions do you hold in common with any other members? Is there a preacher, or anyone, bearing witness with great power to the resurrection? Does the public accord great favor to your church? Is there no one needy among you? Blessed is your church to the extent that you can say, like they say in the TV commercial for Staples, "Yeah, we've got that." But to the extent that you cannot, this reading is a wake-up call, and deserves to sound as jarring as an alarm clock or reveille on a bugle.

Second Reading, 1 John 5:1-6

The Historical Situation: In liturgical year B, we read from the First Letter of Saint John on the Sundays of Easter. Here's a description of the communities who received the original letter, adapted from the Introduction to the letter, in The New American Bible: They are specific Christian communities,
  1. some of whose members were advocating false doctrines (2:18f-26; 3:7).
  2. These errors are here recognized and rejected (4:4);
  3. although their advocates have left the community (2:19),
  4. the threat posed by them remains (3:11).
  5. They have refused to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ (2:22),
  6. the Son of God (2:23)
  7. who came into the world as true man (4:2).
  8. They are difficult people to deal with,
  9. claiming special knowledge of God
  10. but disregarding the divine commandments (2:4),
  11. particularly the commandment of love of neighbor (4:8),
  12. and refusing to accept faith in Christ as the source of sanctification (1:6; 2:6-9).
  13. Thus they are denying the redemptive value of Jesus' death (5:6).
Now let's look at the reading verse by verse.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the father loves (also) the one begotten by him. This means "everyone who claims to love God has to love the others whom God has begotten; the ones that God has begotten are the ones who believe that Jesus is the Christ."

These respond to conditions that I've numbered 5 and 11.

In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. This tells us how to be sure we're square with the requirements of verse 1.
For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, Verse 3 refutes the heretics' claim (see number 9, above) that special knowledge of God is required, simplifying everything. It raises the question, "And why can't the heretics keep these commands? They're not burdensome, after all."
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who (indeed) is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Verses 4 & 5 add this about those whose believe Jesus is the Son of God (refuting the heretics on point 6, above): They conquer the world (although the verses don't say what it means to conquer the world).
This is the one who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not by water alone, but by water and blood. The Spirit is the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth. Verse 6 is something of a change in subject. The water refers to Jesus' baptism, at the beginning of his ministry, where the Spirit testified to him. The blood refers to Jesus' bloody death at the end of his ministry. Both refer to the sacraments, as then known, baptism and the Eucharist. With respect to the heresies afflicting the community, these refer to the issues numbered 7 and 13

Proclaiming It: Your listeners need not know all this background or appreciate these nuances intellectually. You can serve them best by reading the verses one at a time and pausing significantly after each verse. Let each gem of truth sink in a moment. Don't risk blotting it out with another sentence delivered too soon. Different verses may strike chords in the hearts of different listeners. When you read them separtely in the table above (left column only), which strikes you?

Several other commentaries on these passages. All are thoughtful, all quite readable, from the scholarly to the popular.
Links may be incomplete more than a few weeks before the "due date."
Lutheran pastor and college teacher Dan Nelson's notes for a study group
Dan discusses 1 John 1:1-2:2 as second reading today. 		Father Roger Karban's 2003 column about these readings.

Father Frank Cleary's 2003 column about them, from the website of the Saint Louis Review.

The Text This Week; links to homilies, art works, movies and other resources on the week's scripture themes Saint Louis University's excellent Sunday liturgy site. This link is Sunday's "Get to Know the Readings" page, with links to essays by six authors, about the various readings.

Other links here take you to pages labeled "Praying Toward Sunday" and "Spirituality for Sunday." A very rich resource.

The Lectionary selections in the frame at the left, if any, are there for your convenience. The publishers of the page in that frame have no connection, except for membership in the one Body of Christ, with the publisher of this page. Likewise the publishers of the pages on the links above.

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Last modified: Sun Apr 9 21:17:18 CDT 2006